ROTARY CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 219, 16 September 1935, Page 8

ROTARY CLUB.

LUNCHEON MEETING.

AS HISTORY."

DR. JOHN DICKIE'S ADDRESS,

At the weekly lunch meeting of the Auckland Rotary Club, held to-day in Milne and Choyce's reception hall, the Mr. J. P. O'Connor, was in the jhair. There was a large- attendance and among ■the visitors were the following:—Dr. Dickie (Dunedin), Captain E. Rhodes (Melbourne), Messrs. A. G. Brown (London), J. Connell (Christchurch), R. P. Spedding (Rotorua), J. Woolley (Whangarei) and A. E. Pizzy (Melbourne).

The president notified the receipt of ■j. handsomely embroidered blue bannerette from the Bideford Rotary Club, Enjrland. „

The speaker of the day was the Right Eev. Principal John Dickie, D.D., Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, who spoke on the subject, 'Language as Bottled up History." The speaker outlined many of the features whereby the continuity of history was indicated in the development of various languages. He said that in most cases after warfare it was the language of the conquered rather than that of the conquerors which -was preserved. This was due to the fact that the invaders usually chose their wives from among the conquered tribes and it was the women wlio were the dominating influence in fixing the language. There was a tendency where races mixed for the merged community to get rid of awkward sounds and he instanced such words as knife and knee in which the k was still sounded in the home of his boyhood, but had become silent else.where.

The origin of names -was referred to, the speaker remarking that a large number of our commonly used names had come as a commemoration of saints' days. From the great story of Troy had come the most popular Scots name, Alexander, and the same epic had given Aenaeas and Hector. Fascinating women -rere not confined to any nationality, and the name Helen had been almost universally adopted. Penelope was another of the names which, had come from the Trojan cycle. The French in taxing names from the same source had chosen, theirs from the conquering Greeks, using Achilles and others.